Madame Flirt | Page 4

her terror of the beautiful virago never lost her self-control.
"You're welcome to this ground every inch of it, but I suppose I've as much right to walk on it as you have," said she.
"Don't talk to me, you little trull, or you'll drive me to tear your eyes out. Take that."
With the back of her disengaged hand she struck the girl's cheek.
CHAPTER II
"GO YOUR OWN WAY YOU UNGRATEFUL MINX"
The mob roared approval at the prospect of a fight, and though the combatants were unfairly matched some of the ruffians urged the girl to retaliate.
"Go for her hair, little un," one shouted. "There's plenty of it. Once you get a fair hold and tear out a handful she'll squeak, I'll warrant."
The advice was not taken and maybe nobody expected it would be. Anyway, before Sally could renew the attack her arm was seized by a man, slight in stature and with a naturally humorous expression on his lean narrow face and in his bright twinkling eyes.
"Enough of this brawling, mistress. If you must fight choose someone as big and as strong as yourself, not a lambkin."
The crowd knew him and whispers went round. "That's Spiller--Jemmy Spiller the famous play actor." "No, is it though. Lord, he can make folks laugh--ah, split their sides a'most. I see him last Saturday at Master Rich's theayter in the Fields, and I thought I should ha' died."
Spiller was better at making people laugh than at holding an infuriated woman. But he had two friends with him, stalwart butchers from Clare Market, and he turned the task over to them with the remark that they were used to handling mad cattle.
At this point Gay and Leveridge forced their way through the crowd. Gay saw the red angry mark on the girl's pallid face and guessed the cause. He drew her gently to him.
"Run inside the house. I'll join you presently," he whispered.
She thanked him with her eyes and vanished. Gay turned to Spiller.
"You deserve a double benefit at Drury Lane, Jemmy, for what you did just now. That wild cat was about to use her claws," said he.
"Aye, and her teeth too, Mr. Gay."
"You'll need a mouthful of mountain port after that tussle. And your friends as well, when they've disposed of Mistress Salisbury."
The butchers had removed her out of harm's way. Some of her lady friends and sympathisers had joined her; and a couple of young "bloods" who had come to see the fun of an execution, with money burning holes in their pockets, being captured, the party subsided into the "Bowl" where a bottle of wine washed away the remembrance of Sally Salisbury's grievance. But she vowed vengeance on the "squalling chit" sooner or later.
Meanwhile the object of Sally Salisbury's hoped for revenge was sitting in a dark corner of the coffee room of the Maiden Head tavern. She felt terribly embarrassed and answered Bolingbroke's compliments in monosyllables. He pressed her to take some wine but she refused. To her great relief he did not trouble her with attentions.
Then Gay entering with Spiller and his butcher friends, and Leveridge, as soon as he could, approached her.
"Tell me, Polly,--my tongue refuses to say Lavinia--how you have offended that vulgar passionate woman?"
"I don't know. Jealousy, I suppose. She's burning to sing but she can't. Sing, why she sets one's teeth on edge! It might be the sharpening of a knife on a grindstone. She would be a play actress, and Mrs. Barry at Drury Lane promised to help her, but they quarrelled. Sally wanted to be a great actress all at once, but you can't be, can you, sir?"
She looked at the poet earnestly. Her large grey eyes were wonderfully expressive, and Gay did not at once answer. He was thinking how sweet was the face, and how musical and appealing the voice.
"True, child, and that you should say it shows your good sense. Wait here a few minutes and then you shall take me to your mother."
Gay crossed the room to his friends, and they talked together in low voices. Spiller and Leveridge had much to say--indeed it was to these two, who had practical knowledge of the theatre, to whom he appealed. Bolingbroke sat silently listening.
Gay's project concerning his new found prot��g��e was such as would only have entered into the brain of a dreamy and impecunious poet. He saw in Lavinia Fenton the making of a fine actress--not in tragedy but in comedy--and of an enchanting singer. But to be proficient she must be taught not only music, but how to pronounce the English language properly. She had to a certain extent picked up the accent of the vulgar. It was impossible, considering her surroundings and associations, to be otherwise. But proper treatment and proper companions would soon rid her of this defect.
Both